Gallery employees pose with Love is in the Bin by Banksy, photo by Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

Banksy's 'Love is in the Bin': art vs. commercialization

Exploring the impact and meaning behind Banksy's most controversial artwork

Orsolya Antoni
12 January 2025

Banksy is my favourite street artist because of his unique way of addressing everyday life and conflicts. When I was working for a very well-known auction house, I had the opportunity to see some of his work, especially 'Girl with Balloon,' which was shredded at the auction and renamed to 'Love is in the Bin.' This incident, where the artwork self-destructed after being sold, was a bold and intriguing statement by Banksy. It was a direct challenge to the commercialization of art, a practice that often places more value on the price tag than the artistic message and the value we place on it. This incident not only made headlines but also sparked a global conversation about the true value of art and the role of the art market in determining it. The shredded 'Girl with Balloon' became a new piece of art, 'Love is in the Bin,' which further emphasized Banksy's critique of the art market's focus on monetary value over artistic expression.

 

Banksy

Kissing coppers to rutting rhinos: Banksy’s artworks – ranked!

The quality of the enigmatic street artist’s murals veers wildly: from self-satisfied satirical statements to truly funny political provocations. Our critic rates his pieces, from worst to best

Jonathan Jones

Wednesdayt 14 August 2024

One of Banksy’s best-known but emptiest artworks, this mural that first appeared on London’s South Bank in 2002 is the 21st century answer to John Everett Millais’ gooey Victorian painting Bubbles, which was used as an advert for Pear’s Soap. The heart-shaped balloon floats away. The little girl is sad.

Banksy "Limitless" in London

 

Exhibition overview of Banksy: Limitless in Old Brompton Road, London UK 2025 © Banksy / the Author 2025

Banksy "Limitless" in London

A critical look at how street rebellion changes within a gallery space

3 DECEMBER 2025, 

NEIL POWELL

The irony of encountering a Banksy exhibition behind the classical doors in one of London’s most affluent postcodes is almost too neat. “Limitless,” staged in a simply vast, Tardis-like building on South Ken’s Old Brompton Road, is an expansive, crowd-drawing display of reproductions and reimaginings of the artist’s best-known works. But while the exhibition’s allure is to enable access to Banksy’s rebellious world, it also exposes the tensions that have long haunted his trajectory: the uneasy marriage between street-level art/political dissent and the art world’s appetite for commodification.

Banksy's 'Balloon Girl' beats paintings by Constable and Turner to be named Britain's favourite artwork

Balloon Girl
2002
by Banksy

Banksy's 'Balloon Girl' beats paintings by Constable and Turner to be named Britain's favourite artwork

Album covers for the Beatles, Pink Floyd and the Sex Pistols also feature among top 20

Katie Archer
Tuesday 25 July 2017 14:16 BST

Graffiti artist Banksy has beaten the likes of Turner and Constable in a poll of the nation’s favourite artwork.

His famous 2002 daubing on the wall of a Shoreditch shop, Balloon Girl, came top of a list of British art preferred by 2,000 people who were given a shortlist drawn up by arts editors and writers to choose from.

 

Final artwork in Banksy animal series removed by London Zoo

Staff replaced stencil art of gorilla helping animals to escape with reproduction to preserve ‘significant moment’ for zoo

Donna Ferguson

Sun 18 Aug 2024 18.50 BST

Stencilled on a shutter at the entrance to LondonZoo, the mural showed a powerful gorilla lifting up the metal barrier and creating a dark hole just big enough for other animals to use to make a speedy getaway.

Visitors to London Zoo photograph Banksy’s latest artwork – depicting a gorilla freeing animals. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Banksy’s London artworks – in pictures

The street artist’s murals have appeared across the city this month, beginning with a silhouette of a goat on the side of a building near Kew Bridge and continuing with fish swimming around a Police Box in the City of London, a rhino in Charlton and a gorilla at London Zoo

Jim Powell
Tuesday 13 August 2024

THE GUARDIAN

Monday

The first of the Banksy artworks appeared on the side of a building near Kew Bridge in south-west London, depicting a mountain goat and falling rubble

Photograph: Benjamin Cremel/

As the artist posted more images on his account, some social media users began calling the collection the ‘London zoo’ series and developed a theory that Banksy could be likening the recent far-right rioters to animals

Photograph: Ray Tang/

Tuesday

Paul Gough, the vice-chancellor of Arts University Bournemouth and author of Banksy: The Bristol Legacy, said it was quite unusual for the artist to trail a series of works in this way

Photograph: Mina Kim

Tuesday

The second official artwork, depicting two elephants, appeared on the side of a building at the junction of Edith Grove and Edith Terrace in Chelsea

Wednesday

The third artwork, depicting three monkeys, appeared on a bridge in Brick Lane in the East End

Photograph: Lucy North/

Paul Gough added: ‘By releasing images quickly through the social media site he’s eliminated the “whodunnit” part of the process, which normally obsesses global media’

Photograph: Andy Rain

Thursday

The fourth artwork, depicting a howling wolf, appeared on a satellite dish in Peckham, south-east London

Photograph: Jordan Pettitt

The artwork was only briefly on display on the shop roof before it was stolen

Photograph: Jordan Pettitt

A number of past works by Banksy have been stolen, damaged or destroyed after going on display

Photograph: Jordan Pettitt

The theft cements the fact that Banksy is no longer just a street artist working in the shadows. His works have set numerous records at auction, including his seminal Love is in the Bin, which sold at Sotheby’s for £18.6m in 2021 and was described as the ‘pre-eminent artwork of the 21st century’

Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/

Friday

The fifth artwork appeared on the side of a fish and chip shop in Walthamstow, north-east London

The theft cements the fact that Banksy is no longer just a street artist working in the shadows. His works have set numerous records at auction, including his seminal Love is in the Bin, which sold at Sotheby’s for £18.6m in 2021 and was described as the ‘pre-eminent artwork of the 21st century’

Photograph: Andy Rain

Dr Isobel Harbison, a lecturer in critical studies at Goldsmiths, University of London, said: ‘The message might be about the environment, ecology or harmony between the built and natural world. If there is a message we need to glean from our environment this week in London, I think it should be one of acceptance and mutual respect’

Photograph: Anadolu

Saturday

This big cat on Edgware Road in Cricklewood was confirmed as the latest Banksy artwork

Photograph: Andy Hall

Banksy hopes the uplifting works cheer people with a moment of unexpected amusement, as well as to gently underline the human capacity for creative play, rather than for destruction and negativity

Photograph: Andy Hall

Sunday

The seventh artwork to be released this week, depicting fish swimming around a police box, in the City of London

Photograph: Henry Nicholls/

Monday

A new artwork depicting a rhinoceros climbing on top of a car on Westmoor Street in Charlton, south-east London

Photograph: Banksy

People take photos on their phones of the rhino artwork in Charlton

Photograph: Matthew Chattle

Tuesday

ZSL staff measure a mural of a gorilla freeing animals that adorns a wall at London Zoo. ZSL featured the work on its Instagram account, suggesting it was the handiwork of the elusive street artist

Photograph: Leon Neal

Visitors to London Zoo photograph Banksy’s latest artwork

Photograph: Leon Neal/

THE GUARDIAN

Who is Banksy? The latest theories as new work appears around London

 

Who is Banksy? The latest theories as new work appears around London

There have been numerous rumours about the artist’s identity over the years and the interest continues with the arrival of a new series on the capital’s streets

ELIZABETH GREGORY

12 August 2024

Banksy is back in the spotlight after a series of animal-themed works appeared around London this week. Four images have been posted this week, though the final one lasted just hours before it was stolen. 

On Monday, the artist posted the image of a goat in Richmond on his Instagram account, followed by two elephants stencilled on a house in Chelsea the following day and three monkeys on a bridge over Brick Lane after that.

JORDAN PETTITT/PA WIRE

Hero passerby who tried to stop Peckham Banksy theft says he was kicked and phone lobbed during 'tetchy' confrontation

Tom Kellow had gone to admire the artwork on Rye Road on his lunch break

HANNAH ROBERTS9 August 2024

A man who tried to stop three masked thieves from removing a Banksy artwork in Peckham says he was kicked in the side and had his phone thrown during the “tetchy” confrontation.